Hingis Defeats Seles For Family Circle Title

Sports this morning - Monday briefing

April 7, 1997

Martina Hingis, the world's No. 1 women's player, showed another dimension to her growing game in beating former No. 1 Monica Seles of Sarasota, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5), Sunday for the Family Circle Cup championship in Hilton Head Island, S.C.

A week after destroying Seles, 6-2, 6-1, in 44 minutes to win the Lipton Championship, Hingis needed more than two hours for her sixth title this year. Her streak of 31 match victories is tied for sixth-best all-time, but it looked in danger when she trailed, 5-0, in the match's first 14 minutes.

''I was just hoping she didn't do the same score to me as I did to her,'' Hingis said. ''I liked last week (at Lipton) a lot better.''

Hingis won $150,000, boosting her season's total to more than $1.2 million.

After reaching a lifetime dream of entering a horse in the Kentucky Derby last year, Orlando sportsman Don Dizney might make it two in a row. His Derby-nominated Anet has Dizney thinking roses again after the Florida-bred, dark brown colt sailed to a track-record, 9-length victory recently in the Rushaway Stakes at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky. On the same day, George Steinbrenner's Concerto won the Jim Beam feature to establish his Derby credentials. Anet won going away in a Turfway-record time of 1 minute, 4035

seconds for 1 1/16 miles.

Dizney plans to run Anet on April 20 in the featured $250,000 Lone Star Derby on opening weekend for the spiffy new Lone Star Track outside Dallas. Anet figures to be among the early favorites in the Lone Star, a stakes race already regarded as a meaningful steppingstone to the Kentucky Derby.

Dizney said if Anet wins, he plans to ship the colt to Louisville for the Derby. Semoran, owned by Dizney and business partner Jim English, ran 13th last year as the first Derby entry for the two native Kentuckians. Semoran, now a 4-year-old, is scheduled to run in a $100,000 stakes on the Lone Star Track.

Canada wins women's ice hockey title in OT

Nancy Drolet stretched behind United States goalie Erin Whitten to tip in a fluttering puck at 12:59 of overtime and give Canada its fourth consecutive gold medal in the Women's World Ice Hockey Championship, 4-3, in Kitchener, Ontario.

The Canadians have beaten the Americans for all four titles, but this was the first in which they needed overtime.

In a game that had as much back-and-forth and hitting as a ping-pong match, Drolet scored her third goal at the end of one of Canada's innumerable rushes. Whitten failed to get her glove on the initial shot by Hayley Wickenheiser, and Drolet knocked in the winner.

Mutiny stop Revolution for 4-0 MLS victory

Carlos Valderrama scored one goal and assisted on another as the host Tampa Bay Mutiny dominated the New England Revolution, 4-0, at Houlihan's Stadium.

Villanova assistant offered Siena job

Paul Hewitt, an assistant at Villanova, will be offered the job as Siena's head basketball coach, Siena Athletic Director John D. Argenio said. ''We're happy right now, and we're ready to close this,'' Argenio said of Hewitt. An announcement was expected today.

The Siena post would be Hewitt's first head-coaching job at the college level. He has been with Villanova since 1992 and became the top assistant there last year. Prior to that, Hewitt was an assistant at Fordham, Southern California and C.W. Post.

Hewitt would replace Bob Beyer,who was fired after the third year of a five-year deal. Beyer compiled a 22-59 record - the worst three-year mark in Siena's history.

FSU's Fuentes tosses softball no-hitter

Pitcher Kristy Fuentes tossed a five-inning no-hitter as No. 18 Florida State (31-14-1, 5-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) downed Virginia, 8-0, in the first game of a doubleheader. The Seminoles fell, 6-3, in the finale, denying coach JoAnne Graf her 900th career victory.

In the first game, Fuentes struck out nine batters and allowed two walks. Windy Weltz went 3-for-3 and scored two runs. The game was called after five innings because of the eight-run rule.

Virginia never trailed in winning the second game, and FSU's Stacy Venable was charged with the loss.